Research projects
Research projects
Jean Monnet Module on Food Law and Globalization – EU-FLAG
Matteo Ferrari is leading a Jean Monnet Module at the University of Trento. The project was funded by the European Commission in 2020 and will last for three years. The abstract of the project is available below.
General overview
Food law, a branch of the law dealing with the production and distribution of foodstuffs, is a regulatory field whose contents are to a large extent shaped by EU legislation and policies. Nonetheless, the role of EU is often underappreciated by the public and/or is blamed for neglecting national preferences; this perception is exacerbated by globalization, often considered to contribute to the disruption of local traditions. EU-FLAG will contextualize these debates, providing students and the public with a deeper understanding both of EU food law and of how it operates in a global context.
EU food law is considered one of the most advanced regulatory systems in the world. As such, it is often a point of reference for other non-EU countries; in addition, we increasingly find provisions concerning the enforcement of EU legislation outside EU borders. In this sense, EU food law strives to shape globalization. At once, EU food law operates within global dynamics and is shaped by them: 1. rules and standards created at international level are more and more incorporated into EU regulations; 2. the stringent rules characterizing EU food law can have a meaningful impact on the competitiveness of our agri-food system vis à vis non-EU ones. In order to appreciate the dialogic relationship existing between EU food law and globalization, the project will focus on some key areas of food law where such relationship is more prominent.
These general goals will be achieved by organizing: 1. a course exploring how EU food law shapes and is shaped by global dynamics; 2. an annual workshop open to professionals, public managers and the public and in collaboration with a scientific and/or civil society association.
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PRIN Project – Autonomous vehicles and new technologies in transport: market design and legal issues
Giuseppe Bellantuono is leading a research unit at the University of Trento within an interdisciplinary collaboration with economists from the Universities of Bolzano/Bozen and Rome-Tor Vergata. The project was funded by the Italian Ministry for Research in 2019 and will last for three years. The abstract of the project is available below.
Stay tuned for updates !
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will deeply affect the transportation sector in the near future. They will remarkably change demand for mobility, by reducing the opportunity cost of car commute and by automatizing services that are currently requiring human intervention.
Our project analyzes two crucial aspects of the future AVs market. We study the effects of different market design choices. The presence of AVs, associated with the availability of increasingly real-time information of traffic flows, raises the potential benefits from traffic centralization. Using a theory approach, we investigate the structure of efficient tax and sets of rules, criteria and prioritization systems for road capacity allocation when travelers have heterogeneous needs and constraints. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to apply the notion of market design in the AVs sector. Also, we provide a
complementary legal analysis of market design under AVs, using an interdisciplinary and comparative law approach. We will study how coordination among regulators in charge of different sector-specific legal regimes, as well as horizontal legal regimes (competition law, data protection law and cybersecurity law) can lead to the selection of welfare optimal business models and market design.
reCreating Europe
Technologies enable unprecedented democratization of cultural practices, and the production and use of Intellectual Property. An effective system of sustainable norms for digital copyright is needed but this is challenging to create. Copyright law is complex and there are gaps in knowledge and awareness. By bringing together researchers, libraries, copyright experts, policymakers and other stakeholders, reCreating Europe will clarify what is needed for a regulatory framework which supports culturally-diverse production, inclusive access and consumption.
Research Agreement with FBK – “Telemedicine, scientific research and Big Data: the new frontiers of digital health and the protection of personal data”
Paolo Guarda is the Principal Investigator of a collaborative research within an interdisciplinary collaboration with Fondazione Bruno Kessler and TrentinoSalute4.0.
The activity is aimed at analysing the new challenges posed by the personal data protection regulation to digital health, with particular attention to:
- the legal implications related to the use of the medical app in the context of telemedicine (or m-health), taking into accountthe Privacy by Design and Privacy by Default principles;
- the issue of the use of health data for research purposes in the era of Big Data.